


touched

by Merricat_Blackwood



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Based on the TLJ trailer, F/M, Hand Touching, catch me out here posting things i wrote for inktober 2017 instead of new stuff, soft reylo, to hold hands and talk about the Force, what if they ran off together
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-29
Updated: 2018-04-29
Packaged: 2019-04-14 09:27:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 773
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14133168
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Merricat_Blackwood/pseuds/Merricat_Blackwood
Summary: Rey found herself reaching out, not for the knowledge that Ren had to offer her, but for his hand.





	touched

It was obvious enough why she should be drawn to him. They were bound together, inexorably linked in a way that no one else in the galaxy could understand. So she went with him. Of course she went with him. Others might not understand it, but that was exactly the point. No one else possibly could.

Nobody but Kylo Ren. Nobody but Ben Solo. 

What she could not understand, what was still clawing at her skin and troubling her mind, was why she should also be drawn to him physically.

At first she had not recognized the feeling. It just felt like another kind of hunger. Rey had spent all of her life starving, had learned to live with the clanging emptiness down to her bones. When she sat across from him, all listening ears and open hands, ready to accept whatever he could stand to give her … and when he spoke, softly and deeply, of the Force, she was listening to his voice, and when he looked into her eyes and his voice faltered, she was looking back into his, and when he lowered his glistening eyes, and ducked his head and said that was enough for now, they would have another lesson later, Rey found herself reaching out, not for the knowledge that Ren had to offer her, but for his hand.

He had offered it to her before, when they went away together, As a sign of trust, or a request for it, or both. He had offered it to her and she had accepted it, had laid her hand in the palm of his glove, felt the strong fingers trembling as they wrapped around hers, held tight for a couple of heartbeats and then reluctantly let go.

He had not touched her since, nor had she touched him. That was three days ago.

Three days. Rey could go a week without food, but three days, apparently, is as long as she can go without touching Kylo Ren. 

She bites the embarrassment back; she will not be embarrassed by her hunger. She reaches out and lays her fingertips along his knuckles, sheathed in black leather, but she can still feel his warmth, and the tension in his fingers as he registers her touch. But he doesn't pull away.

“Why do you always wear gloves?” Rey asks.

“I … they … to protect my hands,” Ren mumbles. Rey moves her fingers, and he turns his hand over, letting their fingertips bump together, held by an uneasy friction. He does not want to let go either.

“From what?” Rey asks him, her voice softer now.

“My lightsaber,” Ren replies, and it seems to take him some effort, his mouth tripping over the words. Rey glimpses what she can of his face, shadowed by the cave and the lush fall of his hair. His dark eyelashes flutter, his soft lips parting and pulling in the air faster than usual. But his fingertips still press against hers, a little more firmly.

Rey can see it in his eyes, can feel it in his touch … Ren is just as hungry as she is.

“You're not using your lightsaber now,” she points out. Even though she's stating a fact, she's also asking a question.

Ren draws his hand back from hers, and there's an instant when she fears she's pushed too hard, wanted too much. She fears a miscalculation, fears putting any distance between her and the only person in the galaxy who is not afraid of her power. She doesn't want him to be afraid of her need.

But he isn't. He's only taking off his gloves.

It only emphasizes the size of his hands: pale, unaccustomed to sun, but strong and capable, even though they're shaking now.

Rey knows what kind of things those hands have done. She knows all too well.

She reaches out to touch him anyway.

His skin is warm, and as calloused as hers, when they press their palms together. Rey compares the size of their hands, puzzles over the fact that he is trembling even more fiercely than she is.

As if by mutual agreement, Rey and Ren ... Rey and _Ben_ ... lace their fingers together: interlocked, interwoven, intertwined: just like their destinies. Ren looks like he's been struck by lightning and doesn't mind it. Rey feels that shock too, but then a ripped and raveled place begins to knit back together somewhere behind her ribs.

“I'm glad I came,” she whispers.

Ren draws in a sharp, shuddery breath. His fingers twitch through hers, and he squeezes her hand as if to check that she's really there.

“I'm glad too,” he whispers.

 


End file.
